y'all get loud come on oh feel breeze i've been around playin' and gamblin' but lord i'm free yeah saddle up baby, ride up close to me an open highway's all i'll ever need yeah a wide open highway's all i'll need last of a dyin' breed last of a dyin' breed last of a dyin' breed last of a dyin' breed last of a dyin' breed

yes, sir ♪ [applause] craig: lynyrd skynyrd! good night, everybody! good night!

>> president beer and champagne -- the beer and champagne flowing tonight. the team clivernld the national -- clinched the national league east division. the nationals couldn't pull off a win at home against the phillies, but it doesn't matter. the braves lost to the pirates and that was all we needed to

clinch the division. derek is there tonight. >> reporter: it was the wildest experience you've had. as you mentioned the nats lost the game but won the n.l. east and that's all anybody will remember about this night. it was the ninth inning when the scoreboard read up in that park that the pittsburgh pirates knocked off the atlanta braves and the party started right away. people started getting the word on their smart phones. they started cheering. the nats came out of the dugout and began to get ready. the party moved to the locker room once the game was over. if you've not been inside a locker room when a pennant is won it is an experience. take a look at this. players everywhere, champagne everywhere, beer is everywhere. i saw the team walking around, very excited, very happy. everybody offering congratulations. they couldn't have been more a sense of destiny for this team. remember, it's only a few years since the expose moved here all the way from canada.

the team was terrible. they made some trades and moves people didn't like. but all of it culminated in this amazing season, and with even no win tonight, the nats are a champion and the parties begins. a good bit of that partying belongs to the fans tonight. they were outside here and stayed here for quite sometime. i would like to bring in kristen berset who's been out here with me all day long. it was something to see, hundreds if not thousands of fans hanging around after the game was over. >> the roar that came from this crowd when they posted the score up. it was so exciting. they actually turned the pittsburgh atlanta game on in the press box so that we could see it as well. now, you just got your shirt, derek. these are the shirts, n.l. east champs, the first time for the nationals since coming to d.c. this is my first time covering something like this, and i know your first time as well. what an experience that was. we stayed dry and out of the champagne. >> but only because we had

plastic to put over our clothes. believe me, it was a wild scene. >> these fans have been waiting for this for a while now. this place was packed and the excitement was just thrilling. here's what some of the players had to say about all of this. >> tomorrow i'll be ready. hopefully. until then, i'm not going to sleep. i'm staying up. >> we were hoping to get done in st. louis. it might have been a blessing to get back here and do it in front of a packed house tonight. these guys are brilliant. >> it's pretty unbelievable to get us to this town, this city, this team, it's speechless. >> nobody really talked about it having a chance. we kept to ourselves and kept our noses in the game. and every single guy stepped up. so it's a huge accomplishment and we're happy to be the n.l. east division champs. >> we've come a long way. we've done some good things, a couple bad things. but to finish on top is something i'll never forget. >> now, it's all quiet out here. they're setting up the field

for tomorrow's game but derek, this party is still going on down in the clubhouse. i'm sure it's going to be going on for quite awhile. >> you've got to wonder how it is for the baseball team to play a couple more games before the playoffs start. we want to let you know out here on the field they're cleaning up, but there is a lot of this and a lot of beer cans and bottles all around from the players who have been celebrating so much. as we notice, this also belongs to the fans. i know scott broom was outside that park as fans very excited began to make their way back home. josh? >> can you blame them? 79 years since a team from washington has gone to the post- season in baseball. incredible night for the fans. let me take you out on the field, because the party in the locker room came out on the field, and that was the moment for the fans post-game today. among the players on the field, spraying champagne on the fields out feeder, mike morris. the fans just ecstatic, reacting to him, clapping, fireworks. here's how some of them reacted

tonight. >> number one, baby. number one. hopefully we can take all of it. absolutely. go nationals! whoo! >> you're still clapping? >> absolutely, absolutely. this is great. we needed it. history in the making. we went all this time for a playoff run. we're going to a world series. world series. >> i'm excited. i was there for the first game of this stadium. i'm here for the first playoff. i'm so excited. i couldn't be more excited to be here at the nats stadium. >> i'm excited. i've been waiting my whole life for this. i went to a senators game when i was a kid, 9 years old. i won't say what year. >> what were your thoughts about the way it came down tonight? >> i think we got it done. very emotional. >> meanwhile, the eye patches, the fan favorite, talking about teddy. teddy is the mascot who never wins. i'll tell you what, everybody

is rooting for him to win. we're not sure how it's going to play out. i don't think the team will let him win until they win in the world series. now we look ahead. of course, the team has got to finish up here with the phillies in town and we're all looking ahead to tickets for the post-game season. excuse me, the post-season games. tickets now for a potential world series game are up to $975 on some of the reseller ticket websites. so a lot of excitement and a lot of people willing to lay the money down. reporting live outside the stadium, scott broom, 9 news now. derek, back to you inside. >> thank you so much, scott. as you can see already here, the stadium itself is celebrating the nationals as n.l. east division champions. as you mentioned, i, too, went to a senator's game back when i was 10 or 11 years old. i h have never in my life experienced anything like i saw here tonight. just so you know, you couldn't see it this evening won't we went live, it had ended.

but the fans, the fans, perhaps a thousand or two stayed in the stands just to celebrate and cheer, just to have the players shoot some champagne and beer on them and they were literally laughing it up. they were so very excited. we move on to the playoffs. who knows what's next. whatever happens, we know this has been an amazing year for the nationals and the fans have loved it. just so you know, scott, teddy lost again tonight. but it was only by that much. anita, back to you. >> all right, derek mcginty, everybody out there, thank you so much. well, the first debate between president obama and mitt romney just two days away now. it's happening in colorado. a key battleground state. inside a denver airplane hanger, gop volunteers worked the phones as crews set up the stage for mitt romney's last rally before his first presidential debate. >> people are waiting until the debate on wednesday. i think that's going to be a big sway for some people. just to finally see them kind of go head to head and see

where they are on the issues. >> wednesday's debate at the university of denver focuses on domestic policy. romney supporters want the gop nominee to show undecided voters how he'll jump-start the slow economy. colorado is a battleground state that went for president obama back in 2008. a new washington post poll gives the president a comfortable 11-point lead in the swing states. the poll also shows 56% of voters think the fort president is going to win this first debate. sunday in las vegas, he tried to dial back those expectations. >> governor romney, he's a good debater. i'm just okay. >> the president is staying in nevada until wednesday. mr. romney is already in colorado. now, as governor romney and the president are a little sick of all the homework they have to do to get ready, we can tell them who's to blame. chances are it's fred con's fault. gary nurenberg met con in bethesda tonight and got him to

at least take some responsibility. gary? >> when kahn was a student at the university of maryland in 1956 this new american citizen thought it will be a good idea to have the presidential candidates appear there together to answer questions from students. hadn't been done before. yes, there were people at the time who said be careful what you wish for. '56 was a rematch, eisenhower against adlei stephenson. >> i had the idea, try to get them to debate. >> reporter: and fred kahn got responses when he wrote the political parties. eleanor roosevelt saying this might be something that would arouse the interest of young people all over the country. the national chairman acknowledging your idea of having the presidential candidates on the same platform. capp was a new -- kahn was a new citizen. he served in the u.s. army and took citizenship seriously.

>> especially since i had no citizenship before i became an american. i was considered a stateless citizen by the nazis mind you. >> being an american became a very important thing to you? >> very important. especially the people who reared me had been killed by the nazis in the concentration camps. >> he didn't get it done in '56 but kept pushing his ideas. >> as a democracy, you are allowed to have debates. certainly nothing in nazigermany. based on my background, i -- when i became a citizen in the army at fort bragg, north carolina, i wanted to be a good citizen. >> in 1960 it happened to kennedy/nixon. >> i made a bet kennedy would win and i got $5 out of it. >> the rest of us got a tradition, an evolving tradition praised and criticized over the last 52 years. >> what about you? do you think debates are good now or bad? >> i don't know. we'll see wednesday. >> i guess we will. mr. kahn is a good reminder to all of us that often the

americans who make democracy better are the americans who don't take democracy for granted. anita? >> exactly, gary. be sure to join us wednesday night beginning at 9:00 p.m. on our website. we're going to be streaming the debate and fact checking it live to see what the candidates say. also join us for the wrap-up of the debate at 11:00. of course, you can watch it here on wusa at 9:00. tonight at 11:00, american university students being warned about a man fondling women near campus. in the last week this happened four times. all of the incidents happening in the 4200 block of massachusetts avenue between the berkshire apartments and the ward circle building. the description of the suspect we have is still really vague, between 20 and 30 years old, 5'7" to 5'10", always wearing a dark hoody and jeans. did an undercover fbi agent buy prostitutes for gun smuggling suspect then ask the taxpayers to foot the bill for

thousands of dollars? and could some of those prostitutes have been children? these are the disturbing allegations uncovered by the washington guardian. the news outlet says senator charles grassily is demanding answers from fbi director robert mueller. the allegations were raised in a california court case involving those gun smuggling suspects. the alleged trips to brothels were with prostitutes in the philippines. to read the washington guardian's complete story on this, go to our website, wusa9.com. 85 million bucks. that's how much one credit card company has to shell out to customers. find out if you're entitled to some of that cash back. eye exams can reveal more than changes in vision. a routine check saved one guy's life. his story is next. . i'm meteorologist topper shutt. 72 today. here's your wakeup weather. temperatures on the mild side actually. mid-50s to mid-60s at 5:00 and 7:00 a.m. upper 50s to upper 70s by 9:00.

by 7:00 to 9:00 maybe throwing some thunderstorms in the mix. we'll talk about that and what happens to your evening commute and thouing thunderstorms will be in the forecast. and here's tonight's fact from face the fact usa.

how long has it been since you've had an eye exam? when that doctor shines the light into the pupils, he or she can uncover far more than blurry vision. just ask a d.c. man who says the simple check saved his life. >> i went to get my new contacts to take on a trip. >> then mcmanus underwent a routine eye exam to get those new contacts. in the meantime he had been suffering from chronic headaches that were getting worse and worse. >> how bad did it get? >> i couldn't really sleep anymore. i was in a lot of pain. i saw a little spot where it looked like a small little hemorrhage. >> he was immediately sent to a

specialist. that hemorrhage turned out to be a condition, the swelling of the optic nerve along with excess fluid in the brain. he underwent emergency surgery soon after. >> the brain was getting pushed down into the base of my skull. you get paralyzed and can potentially go into a coma and then you die. >> reporter: his story is a dramatic example of how eye exams can reveal far more than changes in vision. ophthalmologists say the eyes act as a direct window into your health. >> when you get behind the lens you can have all kinds of infectious processes, tumors. >> reporter: the key is often the blood vessels inside the eye. the eye is the only part of the body that contains blood vessels without a layer over the top. >> many, many times high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure. >> reporter: as for him, he looks at life differently as he walks the streets of capitol hill knowing he was on the edge of losing his life. >> does it still shock you this

was found through an eye exam. >> yes. i didn't know my doctor could see that. we know when he shines a light in your eye, that's all he did. i'm thankful for that, because he saved my life. >> reporter: and if the blood vessels at the back of the eye are swollen, diabetes can be the culprit. other conditions are signaled by abnormal blood vessel growth on the retina's surface. the white house tonight all aglow in pink to highlight breast cancer awareness. president obama encouraged americans to join in activities to raise awareness and early detection. the american cancer society estimates 230,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year in the united states. that is so pretty to see it lit up like that. >> i'm going to show it to you again, too. >> why not. >> you'll get tired of it. >> it's a nice night to see it. >> sprinkles and showers, and some areas the road never got completely wet. a little better chance tomorrow and a better chance wednesday. but the good news is we're on the warm side of the storm.

it's going to stay warm for a while. let's start with a live look outside. there it is again. this is michael and son weather cam. temperatures still pretty mild. 65 downtown. little bit of light shower activity. not bad. dew point's coming up, upper 50s now. winds turned a little bit but the winds will be nonexistent tonight. it will eventually turn more out of the southeast tomorrow. pressure steady out of the past hour. watching this storm system and really we talked about this earlier. by far and away the bull's-eye and heaviest action of rain will be into the ohio valley and on the west side of the appalachians. the reason why, middle tennessee will move into the ohio valley. that keeps us on the warm side of the storm. the storm circulate counterclockwise so that will give us more of a southerly flow as it moves into the ohio valley. because of that it's also going to keep most of the heavy rain to the west of us. not to say we can't see occasional hof thunderstorms but for the most part, heavy actions of rain on the other side of the appalachians.

there are the showers that went through. nothing really heavy. nothing heavy downstream. for now anyway. we see some heavier activity, see some yell lolls south of charlottesville. that's some of the slightly heavier activity that could move in for the morning commute and mr. bernstein will be here at 4:25 in the morning with your bus stop forecast. light activity right now back to fairfax as you go out 66 and 123. even lighter activity as you go up 270. here's our futurecast. by 6:00 in the morning, this is a wee bit overdone. with that said, i think the roads will be wet in most spots for the morning commute. we'll put this into motion. by noon we had kind after break. everything pulls away. just some light, spotty showers up along the border. by 6:00 tomorrow evening a couple of showers possible. maybe an isolated thunderstorm. i think we'll even see breaks in the clouds. and pretty warm despite the clouds tomorrow, temps will make it at least into the upper 70s, maybe 80. so a wet morning could mute for most. turning warmer, no doubt about

that. we're looking at thunderstorms possible, both tuesday and wednesday. and even warmer on wednesday. talk to mid-80s by wednesday. all right, overnight, looks like this. we'll say showers, mostly cloudy. nothing heavy. cool, 54 to about 64, winds southeasterly at ten. section three days, keep it code green. showers and storms, could still be a code green with that 78. storms on wednesday, 84. that will be nice a. fair amount of sun on wednesday, too. look at thursday, partly cloudy, 84 again. next seven days, well, we are looking at temperatures in the low 80s as we get into friday. very nice. got to go downhill over the weekend. terps in town. it's family weekend at the university of maryland. showers possible before the end of the game and that even cool were a better chance for showers for the redskins on sunday. and rather cool even a better chance of rain and showers next monday. >> we got 80s, 60s, same forecast. >> got it all. >> got it all. october. >> thanks a lot. more problems for iphone 5

users. first the new map app caused headaches. now a bug caused some users to go over their data plans. last week verizon customers noticed their iphones were using cellular data while connected to a wi-fi network which was supposed to be free. they hit their data cap very fast. verizon says it won't charge the customers. apple hasn't commented on how widespread the problem could be. they sent out a fix for the software. american express card holders, you could be in for a refund. the company must pay back $85 million for illegally charging late fees, promising nonexistent $300 rewards and discriminating against applicants over 35. 250,000 customers are affected by the ruling of the you'll be notified if you are one of them. okay, a big night in baseball. you think?

nats clinched the division. hey, kristin. >> there's nothing big going on here. you have no idea what you're talking about. big night for the nats. division champs for 2012 of the n.l. east. highlights from their game, plus hear from the guys in the

>> welcome back. we are live at nationals park. it might be quiet out here now. they're prepping for the next two games, but trust me, the guys are down in the locker room enjoying this wonderful day. the nats n.l. east divisional champs. they lost the game today, but hey, they're still the champs. that's all that matters. let's take a look at what happened before the big celebration. davy and his boy looking to take care of business. top of the second, phillies get on the board. deep to left, center bryce harper crashes into the wall. now with trouble, two runs come

in. it's the first triple. phillies take a 2-0 lead. harper thankfully would be okay. the game settles down into a defensive struggle in the fourth. bases loaded. martinez grounds a ball to fourth. laroche turning the 3-2 double play. in the top of the ninth the final out on a groundout. as the team is headed to the dugout, the nationals and the fans got some welcome news. the braves lost to the pirates 2-1 and the washington nationals became n.l. east champions. the nats did lose today 2-0 but really, who cares? >> a lot of relief. obviously a lot of excitement as you can see here. so we've been waiting for this day. all year and the guys that have been here have been waiting a lot longer than that. nice to do it here at home. >> i love everybody on this team. davy has done a great job all year. for the first time this is pretty unbelievable to get us to this town, this team, it's speechless. >> we've come a long way in a

very short time. and we've got a long way to go. we've got a good young club. i think we should do this every year. >> the guys topped the bubbly and the beer inside the clubhouse but came out here to the field so the fans could celebrate with them. about 1,000 or 2,000 fans stayed around cheering on the team. they just kept with the liquid flowing, it was topping everywhere. just an enjoyable day. family members were down here and the fans, you could just hear the roar. they were just so excited. now, there was another game in action tonight from one of the other local sports team. wasn't as great a news. the orioles in tampa. the raise score three runs in the 7th, including this two-run double. the o's lose. the yankees win. i do want to say when the players were out here, they kind of did a victory lap with all the fans kind of

reminiscent of cal ripken in 1985 when he broke the record. it was an exciting and memorable event out here. we'll be back with more on 9 news now t